I know, I know...

My posts are getting even fewer and further between [if that is possible] but life and no home education going on leaves me with little outside of the mundane to write about.  I may have to change the main topic of the blog to cover life as a parent in general or something similar.

Progress since the last blog...  a very lovely, caring and wonderful sister had, despite my attempt at feigning normality, noticed that I was still functioning at well below par even though I only had Scout at home and made it possible for him to attend an Islamic school too mashaAllah; may Allah ta'ala reward her with success in this life and the next, ameen.  And then my wonderful sister offered to help out financially on a monthy basis so that he could continue his studies at the school - subhanAllah, alhamdulillah, the power of Allah never ceases to amaze me; He can make anything possible.  This is extra fantastic because although Scout is very intelligent mashaAllah I knew he wouldn't cope with the teaching methods used in the school that the other children attend.  He is much more of a visual, spacial learner and needs the freedom to explore subjects in his own way and, alhamdulillah, the school he attends is based on the Montessori approach [which you may remember I did explore myself a while back] which suits him down to the ground and he is loving it.  A few of his friends are there too which also helps ;)

It's a long shot from Montessori's vision of a Farm School for Adolescents but he is given encouragement and space to manage his own learning outside of the classroom and they have independant learning time too.  Unusually for a small school they also have lab space and they seem to do quite a few experiments, which he really enjoys.  All students have access to online tutoring and lessons and a Wikipage dedicated to Biology lessons - they are sitting their Biology GCSE in May inshaAllah.  There have been a few issues but all in all I am really pleased with the way that he is developing, he has only been there for 2 weeks so he still needs to settle into the management of the learning he has to do at home but that will come inshaAllah.

So, what am I doing with all this free time?  Well, I don't get that much free time - about 3 hours a day - but I do get to the women only swim on a Wednesday, madressa and a weekly majlis alhamdulillah!  And you would be surprised how much that 3 hours can do for your health and state of mind mashaAllah.  The house is also a lot tidier mashaAllah and I may be able to get some extra space once I sort throught the home ed. resources I no longer need.  But mostly I'm concentrating on getting better and back to good health so that I can at least get my 3 little ones back to home educating inshaAllah.

Brave Writer Discount

For those of you that may be interested in puchasing the Brave Writer program the chaps at Homeschoolers Buyers Co-op have a 50% off deal that expires on the 31 October 2012 - so go on over and check it out.  Join up if you haven't already you can get some great deals.

Enjoying the outdoors!

We've been out quite a lot since we last looked in {so very long ago}. We spent some time in London with my mum and have spent almost every fine day out and about. Other days have been really relaxed with child led activities including maths, english and baking among others including some excitment caused by flooding in the garden!

The boys have all taken up archery and basketball and are loving it. Lego has had a couple of camps {one of which I got called to collect him from and get him to the hospital with suspected menigitis.  Alhamdulillah [praise be to Allah] it turned out to be a much less serious HSP but it does involve fortnightly bloods etc to make sure it hasn't spread to the other organs. It's not very common apparently and Lego had a torrent of student doctors asking to look at his rash; he wasn't very pleased especially later when he was getting really tired and grumpy lol! He has also reached level 2 in his canoing and now helps in assisting with the younger cub groups that come for canoing sessions.  He was also tasked with helping the younger scouts at the last camp and he is really enjoying the responsibility mashaAllah [as God has willed].

Crush and Daisy have had a long break from Cubs and Beavers not sure of the reason but as it fell in Ramadan I wasn't disappointed; it gave us all a chance to relax a bit Alhamdulillah.  That and the fact that our car has broken down too. Crush is really enjoying his archery and is taking it all very seriously and they are all really looking forward to getting back to it after Ramadan inshaAllah [God willing].  Having no car has also meant that Lego has had to become more independant and has been cycling to the other side of town to go to his activites along with the very kind assistance of a special sister that has volunteered to collect and drop him off to his evening activities mashaAllah.

Here is just a little of what we have been up to...

Bug hunting!

Sculpting in the sand with friends..

Fun with measurements

I was suprised at how much a measuring tape can occupy young chldren

Sprite did this all by himself...

Flooding in the garden...a tornado apparently but it didn't do my veg a lot of good!

Lego's strange rash {that kept us at the hospital all night...}

Making necklaces

This is Daisy's attempt at making me a healthy lunch

The kids spent a couple of days playing with the 'electric stuff'; this was one of Sprite's creations.

Two out of the four went on a day trip to Thorpe Park with the Scouts

Alphabet matching games & alphabetical order

So, fasting is good for you!

So did anyone else watch the Horizon programme about fasting, healthy lifestyles and the aging process?  The presenter carried out some research based around diet and fasting the conclusion of which was that 2 days fasting a week [5 days of normal eating and 2 days of 600 calories a day] is good for you as it encourages the brain/body to grow new cells, has a positive effect on your blood sugar and cholesterol levels and can reduce your risk of getting cancer [because of a decrease in IGF1; a hormone in our bodies that controls our aging/cancer risk].  This, in turn, increases our metabolic health and slows the aging process.

Of course as Muslims we already knew that right? We know of the health and spiritual benefits of fasting 2 days a week as it was one of the great sunnahs [practices] of our beloved Prophet Muhammed [peace be upon him] that we should all aim to practice inshaAllah [God willing].  So, if we ever needed an extra incentive to adopt this sunnah I hope this can be it, but with the right intentions of course!

***For those of you that are unable to view the programme on the above link try this one at You Tube inshaAllah.***

Lazy Days

Sprite, Crush & Daisy are did another play at their tutoring session; can you guess what it was?  If you guessed Goldilocks and the three bears then you guessed right.  Sprite volunteered to make all the masks again so we printed off these cool 3D masks and he painted them and customised them using some fur from the hood of an old coat...he gave the daddy bear a beard too lol!

We have also been enjoying the sun and have had some long afternoons in the park with friends and have been digging over the garden and have managed to get one little area done and placed the raised beds reading for planting.  It sounds easy but we had to dig it all over [not easy with clay soil!], level it out, lay the weed membrane and then wheelbarrow over heaps of sand and shingle.  We were soooo tired at the end of the day we just had to have a take away for tea.

 We also began to demolish the 'oven' that hubby spent so much time and money on and I am so pleased that it's on its way out of my garden!  Can't wait until it's all gone.

We have holidays from Scouts, the library  home school group and madressa so have been taking it really easy; giving me lots of time to plan and think about the way I want to go with the children's education.  Group tuition isn't really working out for Sprite because of his dyslexia.  One of the main things that the educational specialist said he needs is to be over taught any subject and he isn't getting this at tuition. He understands and gets all the worksheets etc correct on the day but he is not retaining any of the information. On the other hand he does enjoy it and it is giving him confidence to see that he is on the same level as his peers - but I;m not convinced that's going to last!  Need to do a lot of thinking about where to go with him!

The colder weather has left us all with colds but God willing we will be back to a proper learning schedule next week.

Same old, same old!

Although it seems like such a long time ago we thoroughly enjoyed the snow; here are some of us sledging!

Crush and Daisy have been trying to learn their number names so out came our trusty laminated fish for our magnetic fishing games

More of my home made matching games to learn their number names...I never really bother teaching this as it seems ever such a waste of time as we rarely use number names in 'real life' and I guessed they could catch up on this later but their tutor is insisting on it!  These cards can be downloaded here, although it should be noted that these ones have roses on them; I have had a request from Crush to man it up a bit and do a set with spanners or something so watch out for these to come!

Daisy decided that she wanted to make her own little 1-20 number book!

We did some writing and spelling in sand!

We spent a long time re-organising our resource shelves, games and some of our books!

And although it's not quite clear in this pic but Daisy made a drum kit [sort of] by filling up several bottles and containers with different amounts of water and spent the rest of the day playing and singing to the Prophet's Hands CD by Dawud Wharnsby Ali.  I spent the rest of the day nursing a headache!

We played lots of games this week...funny that you can go months without playing any and then have to play them all in a few days!

We practiced pioneering with paintbrushes and pencils!

We've been playing with plasticine.

We have had a craft day at the museum which included looking at lots of different toys from various parts of the world including, among others, those pictured above.  We also made masks and laminated 'things'...sorry, still not sure what they are meant to be lol.

Daisy, for some reason, has been really - and I mean REALLY - hooked on numbers over the last couple of weeks and she also modelled the numbers 1-20 from pipecleaners lol!

We have been baking up a storm, these are our yummy blueberry, banana and oat breakfast muffins.

Lego has also discovered the soldering iron and has been making remote controls etc, from scratch this week!

Apart from all of this we have had a couple of days out visiting friends and have also been plodding along with our usual school work - nothing spectacular! Tutoring has been going fabulously for Lego who is doing really well on his GCSE courses and I need to start thinking about getting some exams sorted for him.  He really wants to do his Science GCSE but I am finding it difficult to find a center for him to sit the practical aspect of the exams.  I know nothing about getting exams sorted for private candidates so any ideas would be very welcome.  

Tutoring for the younger ones is also continuing but with my approach to home ed. I'm feeling uneasy about them having to follow the National Curriculum so strictly; they have been stuck on number names for longer than I would have liked for no other reason than it appears in the curriculum at this point.  I also feel that Sprite needs to be pushed a bit harder...he is flying through his work and is always sitting their with his coat and bag on when I arrive to collect them as he has long finished his work.  He also needs to learn to focus more...not sure how I can help him with that other than to give him shorter periods of work needing concentration.  Must do some research!  We also had an really good heart to heart chat about life and education during which I asked him which way he liked to learn most i.e. by watching, doing, reading etc and he said...'I don't know', very helpful lol!

Lego also has a swimming gala coming up so the boys have been swimming a few times a week for the last couple of weeks to get their speed up...Lego is determined for his team to win this year!

Library Homeschool Group

We missed the first week of this project as we were all poorly; in the first week they looked at old and new photographs of different landmarks in the are [places of worship, terraces, victorian buildings etc] and discussed how things had changed. We had done this before as part of one of our projects so hopefully we didn't miss out on much.

This week we got to look at lots of different cameras from different eras and learned how they worked and we got to play with them too...the kids loved this session and asked lots of good questions mashaAllah. All the kids were also given a disposable camera to take home and take photos of their week; homes, food, hobbies, days out etc...they were given advice on how to take photos and some different techniques they could use and were advised to take a few photos every day so they didn't use up all their pictures too quickly. Of course, most didn't listen LOL!

Leaving it to the professionals...

Well I have finally admitted defeat and decided to give up some of my home ed responsibilities to the professionals.  We have been in a rut, educationally, for about a year and it was beginning to have an affect on family relationships and my sanity lol; I knew something had to be done but all my efforts and discussions with the kids came to nothing.  I was making so much dua about it all as I didn't know what to do next; I felt that state school wasn't an option for us and I couldn't affort private schooling [not that that's much better!]; then, by the grace of Allah ta'ala a couple of opportunities sprung up from nowhere alhamdulillah.

The first was a home school group run by the library that is open to suggestions for session activities and wants to 'cater for individual needs' - more about that in the next post God willing.  The other was a private tutoring service providing Maths, English and Science tuition; the upshot is that I have registered the 3 younger ones for the morning session on Mondays [they will do 1 hour of each subject] and Lego will go on Saturday and Sunday for 2 hours per day to do Maths and Science.  This will all kick off this Saturday when Lego begins his classes inshaAllah.  The service is run by a husband and wife team mashaAllah.  They are both teachers and have lots of teaching experience and the sister was very understanding of my situation and is willing to fit in with our needs, they have a max class size of 12 and they don't believe that sitting down with a text book is the best way to learn alhamdulillah [those of you that know me will know that this will be a great relief to me, lol].  On top of this the lessons are extremely reasonable at only £2.50-3 per hour, based on age!  How fab is that mashaAllah?


On the down side I do feel a bit of a hypocrite doing this as I have been, and still am, a strong advocate of home education and would always encourage people to give Home Ed a go but I am just tired and need to recharge my batteries a little!  I know some of you will be shocked at all this revelation so in order to defend myself I would like to point out that I have no family around me to help, other than my husband, who is unable to help with the HEd, and I work part time in addition to the normal woman of the house stuff we all have to do. I also suffer from a long term illness that effects my energy levels etc.  SubhanAllah, did that sound like whinging....sorry, I don't mean to whine just state my case - a couple of people almost fell off their chairs when they found out LOL!

We had got to a stage where the children and I were on different wave lengths and we couldn't get back our learning mojo that was lost during and after my diagnosis.  I did continue to educate through the illness and beyond but it was a continual battle with no time to take a breather.  I think the kids and I need a bit of time away from each other to get our mojo back and these two ventures will just about do it I think God Willing.  It will allow me not to have to think about what to teach as we can base it on what they are doing with their tutors and the homework they set.  We also have the activities at the library which we can work from too and I am also hoping to incorporate a project that we all work on together God willing - but we won't begin this for a week or two to allow us to get into a routine!

We are all looking forward to our new programme of education [although the kids have been talking about the impact it will have on their 'free' time LOL] and it has already lifted some stress from the house; we are having more fun together already and I have more energy and enthusiasm for the little things that I want to teach them like reading, spelling, crafts etc.

Please remember me and my family in your duas as well as all the home educators out there, who give so much, may Allah ta'ala give us ease and guidance in the task raising our children for His pleasure. Ameen.

Banquets and Businesses

This week has seen a business idea of Lego's come to fruition mashaAllah; he has been setting up his eBay account to sell his creations, opened a bank account (he needs to get paid of course) and has designed his 'company' logo, prepared a budget and a profit and loss statement, designed compliment slips and packaging. He needs to photograph his creations so has also designed a 'light box' for the purpose.  I was very impressed mashaAllah and he took the time to explain it all to me and 'prove', through examples, that his idea would work.  As a result I decided to invest a little into his idea to start his business off inshaAllah. A budding entrepreneur indeed, mashaAllah.

The kids have also decided that they want to hold their Historical Banquet at our house in October mashaAllah.  As it all go out of hand before they have been told to keep numbers down and are being very sensible mashaAllah.  They are going to need some guidance as this is their first time organising a 'do' and they are getting a little side tracked and need to set a list of priorities. Their first priority is to get the invitations out asap as each guest will be given a character that they need to dress up as and present a very short precis about on the day.  I though this was a fantastic idea and have already purchased the tooth and face blacking for my character [can you guess who I'm going to be? LOL].

The mums also thought it would be a great idea to hand out the invitations in the style of Funeral Biscuits [just to maintain the historical theme!] which were used in Victorian times to bid people to attend funerals; specially prepared biscuits, wrapped in paper and sealed with wax, the banquet details on the front and a biscuit and information about the original form of the biscuit inside. They sound like great fun to make, we have found a recipe and are looking forward to helping with this one!  Here's a picture of original wrapper displayed at the Pitt River Museum at the University of Oxford.

Everyone is going to bring a dish but the boys want to cook a sample of different foods for varying era's for people to try and are researching and organising historical games inshaAllah.  I'm quite looking forward to it all but dreading the cleaning up!

This seemed to be a week or revisits so we ended up at Watermead Park [again], feeding the ducks and strolling mashaAllah.

And at the Abbey Park Pumping Station [again], here's a picture of part of the pumps:

And we had a day of building marble runs on Saturday at a friends house, here's one they manage to perfect after running various tests with different size marbles, inclines etc....meanwhile I had a nice chat and a cup of coffee with me mate!

Autumn has returned with a vengeance and has left us all with the sniffles but poor Crush had it worse with a very high temperature and hallucinations where all the cloth/material came to life in the house...he was so scared, poor thing, and I find it quite difficult as it reminds me of when my father was in intensive care, he was  complaining that the people in the beds opposite had been partying all night and were cutting off Jesus' legs LOL [yes, we can laugh about it now but at the time...!].  He was begging me to take him home and it was really difficult convincing him that he was in the best place!

Lego is learning all about racism in Amercia as part of his study of Holes, we were worried that they would find it difficult but they are doing very well mashaAllah.  I was a bit concerned about how the English lesson I teach on a Saturday is going and that Sprite wasn't taking it seriously but this week he did me proud.  We read our book and did looked at debating.  We did an off the cuff debate and the kids enjoyed it much more than I anticipated and they have been 'debating' everything every since!

Well these past two weeks have been so busy and have flown by.  I've been having some Osteopathy on my back [great stuff; highly recommended!] so am getting back on track back wise but came down with an evil stomach virus.  Nevertheless we have all taken the opportunity [on any rain free day] to get in the garden to do some clearing, digging and general chopping stuff down and it's now looking like this;

That's an exhausted Sprite you can see in the middle who had been chopping wood and digging with the pick axe [alhamdulillah for his axe training with the scouts lol]....he is soaking in a hot bath as I type! You will notice the missing pile of wood etc that took hubby three trips to the tip to dispose of; not to mention all the metal etc he took a day to put in the garage poor thing.  And just in case you don't remember what it looked like here's a little reminder.

We have also been collecting conkers:

And Crash has been cooking [if you can call a flan cooking] and it was extremely yummy!

 

We have also been making ribbon roses [very addictive and therapeutic!]...I know they look a strange type of cool in the photos but we weren't very successful I can assure you!  Lots more practice needed LOL.

Apart from that we haven't done much at all outside the usual daily madressah, maths, English and reading etc and are still trying to get back into 'the swing of things' following Ramadhan.  However, Cubs and Beavers are back on as is the English tutor for Lego and sports for the two little ones so I guess it's back to the mad daily dash around.....but on reflection, they won't be needing me for much longer so I should savour every moment inshaAllah.

And lastly... in my quest for the right home schooling curriculum/method for us the 'Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Educations' keeps coming up so I guess that in response to my prayers Allah ta'Ala is guiding me to this book...which I have ordered but it STILL hasn't arrived!  I feel that Montessori doesn't really have much to offer my children but feel really excited about what this has to offer and would love to hear from any of you following the recommendations in this book for your home ed!